Sunday is coming whether you are ready or not. The thing that will often surprise me with worship leaders is that they can seem surprised that Sunday is coming. It is a mad dash to throw together songs, communicate to a team, get through a rehearsal, and get lyrics and sound pulled together for a Sunday service, not to mention the preparation of your own heart.
Certainly, there are seasons and stages of life where we feel like we can never get ahead. And certainly, there are people who live swinging chaotically from one day to the next regardless of their season.
One of the things I have experienced is the more prepared I am, the freer I feel. The more prepared my team is, the less anxious they feel in preparation for a Sunday. The more consistent I am, the more my team, and the congregation can trust my leadership, and the direction we are headed together.
One of the most practical things I do every week is print off a new worship leader checklist. You can download the version I use for free here. This helps fewer things live in my brain - especially those things that have to be done every single week. Here are a few other suggestions for growing practically as a worship leader:
Get ahead. I schedule my teams, and my set lists a month at a time. This means at the end of every month, I have requested the team put in their blockout dates on Planning Center, and I have built rough set lists for the following month based on the sermon series and texts. People decline, and songs and liturgy change - but having a baseline allows me not to scramble week-to-week while also keeping a 30,000-foot view in mind as I am serving.
Communication. Both with your team, and with your pastor. When possible, create standing weekly rhythms.
Considering all of the elements. We need to think critically about the gathering, and how all of the elements influence and impact one another. If you want to spend time introducing a new song, you should consider sandwiching that song between songs that are more familiar to the congregation. If you want to add in a time for testimonies, taking the Lord’s Supper, or baptizing someone in the service - these will add time that needs to be made up somewhere else. Think about how these things need to be communicated to children’s volunteers, and people with other responsibilities within the corporate gathering.
Heart preparation. It is funny that when I am frantically trying to pull a service together, the first thing to drop off of my list of preparation is preparing my own heart - reading, slowing down, studying, worshiping, and praying for my team. All of these things are aspects of the way I desire to prepare my heart before serving - but can easily be the thing we rationalize as ‘less valuable’ when in reality it should take precedence.
Rehearsals are another place where I see many worship leaders fail practically. Showing up late or unprepared. Having not spent time thinking through songs, and dynamics, not being warmed up. These are all simple adjustments that can see tremendous growth in the practicalities of leading worship.
